if you're bored, you're not paying attention
My first freelance article since leaving Mobile last month is out, and it’s for Technology Review:
Eyes on the Prize
If hefty technology prizes like DARPA’s $2 million Grand Challenge prize push technology forward faster, why not create more of them?
When Stanford University’s robotic Volkswagen Touareg, “Stanley,” won the Grand Challenge last week, robot enthusiasts everywhere cheered. By completing a 210-kilometer course over difficult desert terrain in just under seven hours, Stanley set an unprecedented milestone for autonomous vehicles.
Even more amazingly, four other teams’ vehicles also completed the course, with slightly slower times.… Story continues … “Eyes on the Prize”
Andrew Orlowski is unusually clear-headed this week, pointing out the phony slump in movie revenues:
… Story continues … “Phony copyright crisis.”Listening to our old friend Lawrence Lessig and former MPAA boss Jack Valenti debate each other on National Public Radio last week, it became clear.
The newly-discovered 10th planet, Xena, turns out to have a moon. They’re calling it Gabrielle, of course.
Sony’s slimmest Cyber-shot, the DSC-T7, is more than just a camera. It’s skinny enough that you could use it to shim up a wobbly kitchen table or to wedge a door shut. Or you could weld on a little extra hardware and wear it as a belt buckle.… Story continues … “Sony DSC-T7 Cyber-shot”
To some, the Tablet PC operating system ranks right up there with Microsoft Bob, Clippy the Office Wizard, and Steve Ballmer as one of Microsoft’s most obnoxious, useless creations. The IBM ThinkPad X41 Tablet is unlikely to change the minds of the haters.… Story continues … “IBM ThinkPad X41 Tablet”
If you prefer the McDonald’s dollar menu to dining at the Ritz, Friday night TV movies to Broadway shows, and big blocks of Velveeta to imported French Brie, then the SanDisk Sansa e130 is the perfect audio player for you. Just don’t ask it to deliver top-drawer audio quality or usability.… Story continues … “SanDisk Sansa e130”
“There is a design revolution going on. And it’s not about the winner of round 5 of the console wars. This is about moving our devices out into free space, no longer constrained by their own form factor. This is about how we start using our bodies for communication, commerce and play in a digital world.”… Story continues … “Interface revolution.”
My story about Palm Inc. for the November issue of Mobile (on newsstands next week) turns out to be right on the money. My analysis: Palm better switch from Palm OS to Windows Mobile soon, or face oblivion. Today, confirmation: Engadget shows the Windows-based Treo 700w.
Well, I should have lots more time for blogging now that my days won’t be taken up with the agonizing work of producing the world’s most entertaining, authoritative magazine on mobile technology. Yes, it’s true: Mobile magazine has folded. Despite having far better-written, more accurate, and better edited copy than the competition, despite having a respectably large monthly circulation, and despite selling nearly 40 pages of quite expensive ads every month, we somehow never managed to crawl out of the money pit we dug for ourselves in the early days.… Story continues … “Mobile no more.”